American Express Adds New Tech Executive in U.S. Consumer Services Business

American Express Adds New Tech Executive in U.S. Consumer Services Business

Erich Ringewald Joins as VP of Software Product Management

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- American Express Company (NYS: AXP) today announced Erich Ringewald will join the company as vice president of Software Product Management for the U.S. Consumer Services business, where he will help design software-based consumer products.

Most recently, Ringewald served as chief technology officer for Boku, a leading global mobile payments network that enables customers to purchase virtual goods using their mobile phone numbers. Ringewald was one of Boku's founders and helped build the company from a start-up into a global payments platform operating in 66 countries with 245 wireless carriers.

Prior to joining Boku, Ringewald was a General Manager and Vice President of Amazon.com, where he led the development of AmazonMP3, the industry-changing digital music site, and was responsible for overseeing numerous business and technology functions including Amazon's 3rd party seller platform, Amazon.com Auctions, Amazon.com zshops and Amazon.com's global payments platform. Earlier in his career, he co-founded Accept.com, which pioneered person-to-person payments on the internet. Accept.com was acquired by Amazon.com where the technology powered payments for Amazon.com's 3rd party sellers. He also co-founded Be, Inc., a computer company founded by former Apple Computer executives, and served as the Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering. While there, he oversaw the development of the Be Operating System (BeOS), the next-generation operating system operating system focused on delivering a powerful multimedia experience to the PC desktop. Prior to that, he held various senior engineering management positions at Apple Computer, including managing the Operating System Advanced Technology teams, the Macintosh Operating System team and the European Software Research and Development team.

"As the payments space becomes increasingly digital, building great software is rapidly becoming core to our products and our success," said Josh Silverman, President of the U.S. Consumer Services business. "Erich will be instrumental in helping American Express turn ideas into innovative products and do so more quickly, -- adding to the competitive advantage we already have as we connect buyers and sellers with an increasingly enhanced consumer experience."